So how do you get ready? Pump yourself up with five songs below, depending on what you aim to accomplish. Each one has a different sound to help you get ready.

When you have to walk in with a little swagger, ready to engage in some awesome panels and really impress some agents and editors, look no further than the Foal’s “My Number.”

Writer’s can oftentimes be littered with self-defeat and doubt. We face rejection and denial more than we face success. It’s the business, no getting around it. But we can never show our vulnerability in a negative light, we have to remember it as a learning experience that we improve upon. Be sure you’re feeling good headed into RMFW. Let Michael Buble help and remember that J.K. Rowling was rejected by twelve publishing houses before Random House picked up Harry Potter. Think about that. That means there are twelve publishing houses that will always regret the day they turned down a billion dollar franchise.

Are you going just to learn? Are you merely getting started and don’t have a single writing credit to your name? If that’s the case, soak it up, enjoy. Don’t let it overwhelm you, even though it will. In that case, just observe the behaviors and nature of everyone around you while listening to David Byrne’s “Like Humans Do.”

Oftentimes, conferences like these remind you why you love this industry and motivates you to do better the second you leave the conference, ready to write until your fingers hurt and carpal tunnel starts to creep its way into your every arm muscle.

Then of course, for those of us that have been wanting to pursue writing for a long time, 15 years for me, this could be a culmination of events. For me, it marks when I’m officially ready to try to pitch Current to agents. Two years ago I was at the conference, and realized I had a bit further to go still. Now, the manuscript has been refined, edited time and time again, and is the book I am proud to say that I have written. So I’ve put a little bit of pressure on myself to do well at my pitch session. What better song to close it out than Queen & David Bowie. P.S. Boo, Queen’s Official YouTube page for not allowing embedding. If you have the chance to bring more Freddie Mercury into the world, you allow it.

I’ll be there all weekend. I’ll be the nerdy guy with glasses, which won’t make me too hard to find, he said, sarcasm flowing. I’ll be grabbing some pictures, maybe even seeing if an author will do an interview for the YouTube channel. I’ll be live Tweeting any panel I go to, I’m @ThomasAFowler.